·A new version of Live Upgrade minimizes service downtime during
package updates. It also provides the ability to simply reboot to a previous
version of the software if necessary - without resorting to backup tapes.

·All of this is integrated with ZFS. For example, the alternate
boot environemnts (ABEs) created by the Live Upgrade tools are ZFS clones,
minimizing the time to create them and the space they occupy.

Network virtualization and resource control features enable
networks-in-a-box

Previewed in Solaris 11
Express, the network virtualization and resource control features in Oracle
Solaris 11 enable you to create an entire network in a Solaris instance. This
can include virtual switches, virtual routers, integrated firewall and
load-balancing software, IP tunnels, and more.

In addition to the significant
improvements in flexibility compared to a physical network, network performance
typically improves. Instead of traversing multiple physical network components
(NICs, cables, switches and routers), packet transfers are accomplished by
in-memory loads and stores. Packet latency shrinks dramatically, and aggregate
bandwidth is no longer limited by NICs, but by memory link bandwidth.

But mimicking a network wasn't enough.
The Solaris 11 network resource controls provide the ability to dynamically
control the amount of network bandwidth that a particular workload can
use. (Note that some of the details may have changed between the Solaris
11 Express details described in that entry, and the details of Solaris 11.)

Easy, efficient data management

Solaris 11 expands on the
award-winning ZFS file system, adding encryption and de-duplication. Multiple
encryption algorithms are available and can make use of encryption features
included in the CPU, such as the SPARC T3 and T4 CPUs. An in-kernel CIFS server
was also added, and the data is stored in a ZFS dataset. Ease-of-use is still a
high-priority goal. Enabling CIFS service is as simple as enabling a dataset
property.

Improved built-in computer virtualization

Along with ZFS, Oracle
Solaris Zones continues to be a core feature set in use at many data centers.
(The use of the word "Zones" will be preferred over the use of
"Containers" to reduce confusion.) These features are enhanced in
Solaris 11. I will detail these enhancements in a future blog entry, but here
is a quick summary:

·Greater flexibility for immutable zones - called
"sparse-root zones" in Solaris 10. Multiple options are available in
Solaris 11.

·A zone can be an NFS server!

·Administration of existing zones can be delegated to users in
the global zone

·Zonestat(1) reports on resource consumption of zones.

·A P2V "pre-flight" checker verifies that a Solaris 10
or Solaris 11 system is configured correctly for migration (P2V) into a zone on
Solaris 11.

·To simplify the process of creating a zone, by default a zone
gets a VNIC that is automatically configured on the most obvious physical NIC.
Of course, you can manually configure a plethora of non-default network
options.

Advanced protection

Long known as one of the most
secure operating systems on the planet, Oracle Solaris 11 continues making
advances, including:

·CPU-speed network encryption means no compromises

·Secure startup: by default, only the ssh service is enabled - a
minimal attack surface reduces risk

·Restricted root: by default, 'root' is a role, not a user - all
actions are logged or audited by username

·Anti-spoofing properties for data links

·...and more.

There are
multiple reasons why this important news:

On Oracle
OpenWorld 2011 several new Appliances were introduced as well:

ORACLE SPARC SUPERCLUSTER T4-4

The
Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 is the world’s fastest general purpose
engineered system that delivers high performance, availability, scalability and
security across a wide range of enterprise applications, including database,
middleware, Oracle and custom applications. The SPARC SuperCluster T4-4
solution is a completely optimized package of servers, storage and software that
integrates high performance technologies including Oracle Exadata Storage
Servers and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud while utilizing the newest SPARC T4-4
servers, Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, InfiniBand I/O fabric, and Oracle
Solaris 11.

Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine

Engineered
System for Extreme Analytics

The industry's first in-memory BI machine that
delivers the fastest performance for business intelligence and planning
applications.

ORACLE
DATABASE APPLIANCE

The
Oracle Database Appliance saves time and money by simplifying deployment,
maintenance, and support of high-availability database solutions. Built with
the latest generation of the world’s most popular database—Oracle Database
11g—it offers customers a fully integrated system of software, servers,
storage, and networking in a single box that delivers high-availability
database services for a wide range of homegrown and packaged online
transaction processing (OLTP) and data warehousing applications. All hardware
and software components are supported by a single vendor—Oracle—and offers
customers unique pay-as-you-grow software licensing to quickly scale from 2
processor cores to 24 processor cores without incurring the costs and
downtime usually associated with hardware upgrades.

Big Data for the Enterprise

With the
recent introduction of Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle is the first vendor to
offer a

complete
and integrated solution to address the full spectrum of enterprise big data
requirements.

Oracle’s
big data strategy is centered on the idea that you can evolve your current
enterprise data

architecture
to incorporate big data and deliver business value. By evolving your current

enterprise
architecture, you can leverage the proven reliability, flexibility and performance
of your

• SQL
solutions: the world typically equated with the manageability, security and
trusted

nature of
relational database management systems (RDBMS)

NoSQL
systems are designed to capture all data without categorizing and parsing it
upon entry

into the
system, and therefore the data is highly varied. SQL systems, on the other
hand, typically

place data
in well-defined structures and impose metadata on the data captured to ensure consistency
and validate data types.

Oracle’s
Big Data Solutions

Oracle’s
big data strategy is centered on the idea that you can

evolve
your current enterprise data architecture to incorporate big data and deliver
business

value,
leveraging the proven reliability, flexibility and performance of your Oracle
systems to

address
your big Oracle data requirements.

Oracle
Big Data Appliance

The
Oracle Big Data Appliance is an engineered system that combines optimized
hardware with the most comprehensive software stack featuring specialized
solutions developed by Oracle to deliver

a
complete, easy-to-deploy solution for acquiring, organizing and loading big
data into Oracle Database 11g. It is designed to deliver extreme analytics on
all data types, with enterprise-class performance, availability, supportability
and security. It is also tightly integrated with Oracle Exadata and Oracle
Database, so you can analyze all your data together with extreme performance.